How Ukraine's cyber army poses enormous problems for Russia

Created: 06/11/2022, 09:06

By: Bettina Menzel

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flies into space - among other things, 51 Starlink satellites are on board.

The Starlink satellites are a great help to Ukraine in the war (stock image, September 5, 2022).

© picture alliance/dpa/Florida Today via AP |

Malcolm Denmark/Florida Today

The Ukraine war is the first large-scale cyber war.

The country has a cyber army of 300,000 volunteers - civilians also "fight" against Russian troops via an app.

Lisbon - Since the start of the Ukraine war, the country's economy has collapsed drastically and around a third of Ukraine's critical infrastructure has been destroyed, thousands of people have lost their lives.

But in at least two areas Ukraine has not been defeated so far: in the morale of its troops - and in IT.

The country had a strong tech industry even before the war - but now a cyber army of volunteers fights in the background with the men on the front lines.

Civilians can easily report Russian troop movements via app.

War in Ukraine marks a turning point: First large-scale cyber war

The Ukraine war marks a turning point in many respects.

It is the first armed conflict in which cyberweapons are used on a large scale to maximize the impact of military operations on the ground.

This emerges from Microsoft's Digital Defense Report 2022 on Friday.

Even before the invasion, there was repeated talk of a hybrid war.

Russia's cyber attacks on Ukraine are another part of this hybrid strategy.

Because one of the first targets that Russian missiles fired on at the beginning of the Ukraine war was a data center.

Shortly before the invasion, there were 237 cyberattacks by six different Russian hacker groups linked to Russian intelligence agencies, according to Microsoft analysis.

The aim of the attackers was to sow doubts about the country's leadership - and to attack the country's communication and defense capabilities.

The destruction of communications appears to have been partially successful, Ukraine's Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation, Alex Bornyakov, revealed on Friday during a presentation at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon.

Russia apparently destroyed Ukraine's military communications early in the war

Ukraine's Deputy Digital Transformation Minister Alex Bornyakov explained how technology is helping his country "win the war".

"An example of how technology has changed the entire war is Starlink," said the Deputy Minister.

“This satellite internet has given Ukraine the communications that Russia was desperate to destroy.

I don't know which of you knows this, but: They actually made it.

They had this specific plan, and when they invaded Ukraine, they destroyed our military communications.” But Russia apparently didn't expect Starlink to come into play.

"It's the only way our troops on the front line communicate and coordinate - and I don't think I need to explain how important that coordination is,"

More than 18,000 Starlink satellites ensure that the internet is restored at the front and in the liberated areas.

The technology also enables connection to critical infrastructure such as hospitals, emergency services and civilians.

As a by-product, IT companies can continue to operate stably even in times of war – under all conditions.

According to Ukrainian data, the Ukrainian IT industry has grown by 16 percent since 2021 while the Ukrainian economy collapsed.

Alex Bornyakov, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, speaking at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal on November 4, 2022.

© Bettina Menzel / Munich Mercury

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App eVorog allows civilians to report troop movements to the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Ukraine created its own Ministry for Digital Transformation back in 2019 in order to strengthen the digital competence of citizens and digitize public administration.

"Our goal was to become the most user-friendly country in the world," explains Alex Bornyakov.

Ukraine was the first country in the world where digital passports had already completely replaced analogue paper documents.

This is made possible by the Diia app, which already has 18 million users.

"When the war broke out, we completely changed our focus," emphasized the minister.

Instead, the ministry focused on the eVorog app - which translates as "eEnemy".

With it, anyone in Ukraine can inform the country's armed forces via chat about troop movements, military equipment, war crimes, collaborators, explosive substances or suspicious objects.

This works via a Telegram channel or via the main page in the Diia app.

The deputy minister said there had already been over 300,000 reports from civilians to the armed forces.

Cyber ​​army of volunteers takes on specific tasks - drone army to protect the sky

Another important aspect of cyberwar is propaganda on the internet.

At the beginning of the war, Ukrainians were shown about twice as much (+216 percent) Russian propaganda as before.

Microsoft analysts determined this in their report using the Russian Propaganda Index.

In the USA and Europe, too, propaganda increased abruptly.

The prevalence of deepfakes increased by 900 percent compared to 2019.

Ukraine is defending itself against this with a cyber army made up of volunteers.

This "IT army" now consists of 300,000 Ukrainian and international cyber specialists who, among other things, fight propaganda in cyberspace, explains the Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation.

"I remember in the first days of the war we were a small team.

We were overwhelmed by thousands of inquiries and people wanted to know: how can we help?” The inquiries came from hackers, but also from developers in the IT industry.

Then they thought about it and came to the decision to set up a special task force.

These people were given guidelines and tasks, explains Bornykov.

Now drones are high on Ukraine's agenda.

"This is one of the major projects that we are now focusing on," said the Deputy Minister.

A drone army is supposed to protect the skies over Ukraine.

The goal is to acquire civilian drones and make them usable for the purposes of the armed forces.

There is a network of schools that teach the armed forces how to use the devices.

"And a network of repair units that can repair them again," said the minister.

On Saturday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in his video speech that he wanted to purchase a fleet of sea drones.